COUGARS CLOSE HOME SLATE HOSTING HUSKIES: Washington State University men's basketball (16-11, 6-9) hosts its final Pacific-10 Conference home game as Washington (18-9, 8-7) comes to Beasley Coliseum, Saturday, Feb. 27 for a 7 p.m. tip. The Cougars will honor lone senior Nikola Koprivica prior to the game as the small forward looks to become the winningest player in WSU basketball history with one more victory. The game will be shown live on FSN Northwest.

ABOUT THE COUGS:
 The Cougs snapped their three-game skid with a 51-47 victory over USC Saturday, Feb. 20 at Pullman's Beasley Coliseum.
 The Cougars are now 16-11 on the season and 6-9 in Pacific-10 Conference action, sitting in ninth place in the league, just a half game out of eighth.
 WSU has lost six of its last eight games and two of its last three home games.
 WSU is 10-4 at home and 4-4 at home in conference action...the Cougs are 3-0 in neutral site games.
 Sophomore Klay Thompson leads the team and ranks third in the conference with 20.1 points per game...he's scored double figures in 22 of the Cougs' 27 games this season and reached 20-plus points in 15 of the 27 contests.
 Freshman point guard Reggie Moore leads the team with 4.1 assists a game, adding a team second-best 13.4 points an outing.
 Sophomore DeAngelo Casto leads the Cougs on the boards with 6.9 rebounds a game, adding 10.3 points per game.
 The Cougars' lone senior, Nikola Koprivica, is chipping in 8.8 points per game.

ABOUT THE WASHINGTON HUSKIES:
 Under eighth-year head coach Lorenzo Romar, the Huskies are 18-9 overall and 8-7 in Pac-10 play.
 Washington sits alone in fifth place in the league, behind 7-6 Arizona.
 Although they've won just two of their last four, the Huskies have won six of their last eight games.
 Washington has struggled on the road this season at 1-6 overall and 1-5 in league play...in contrast, the Huskies are 17-2 at home and 7-2 at home in conference action.
 Senior forward Quincy Pondexter leads the Huskies with 20.3 points per game...he ranks second in the Pac-10 in scoring and third in rebounding with 7.9 boards a game.
 Sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas ranks second on the team with 17.0 points per outing having started all 26 of the team's 27 games he's played in.
 Venoy Overton has come off the bench the majority of the season to add 8.8 points and 3.3 assists and 1.5 steals a game.

AGAINST THE HUSKIES:
 The Cougars trail the all-time series 170-98...UW holds a 70-61 advantage on the road in the series.
 Washington has won the last three meetings, including a sweep last season.
 In the first meeting this season, WSU let a four-point halftime lead slip away as it fell to Washington, 92-64, Jan. 30 at Seattle.
 Xavier Thames led the Cougars with a career-high 15 points...he was 6-for-8 from the field.
 Nikola Koprivica scored all 13 of his points in the first half and finished with his first career double-double adding 11 rebounds.
 Reggie Moore also put up 13 points in his hometown of Seattle...he was 7-for-10 from the free throw line.
 Quincy Pondexter had a double-double for the Huskies with 29 points and 12 boards.
 Isaiah Thomas added 19 points and six boards.
 The 28-point loss marked WSU's largest loss of the season...fell by 25 at Arizona State.
 Koprivica had a career-best 13-first half points...his three 3-pointers are his most in a first half and just the second time he's had more than two in the first period.
 For the first time in his career, Klay Thompson did not start a game...had started 53-consecutive games.
 Senior Nikola Koprivica got his first start of the season...started four games as a freshman and 18 as a junior.

LAST TIME OUT FOR THE COUGS:
 In a battle of defenses, WSU defeated USC, 51-47, Saturday, Feb. 20 at Beasley Coliseum.
 Reggie Moore led the Cougs with 12 points... led the team in scoring for the second-straight game and the seventh time this season.
 DeAngelo Casto and Abe Lodwick added 11 points each.
 Lodwick scored a personal Pac-10 best 11 points...previous high was three done three times...played a personal Pac-10 best 20 minutes.
 Nikola Koprivica did not make a 3-point field goal snapping his 16-game streak with at least one 3-pointer made...had made at least one in every Pac-10 game this season.
 Klay Thompson did not score in the first half marking the first time this season he did not score in either half...his two points are a career-low, marking the first time in his career he did not make a field goal (2-for-5 from the free throw line, 0-for-12 from the field).
 USC's 47 points mark the fewest by a WSU opponent this season...fewest was 56 scored by San Diego (Nov. 28).
 USC's 19 first-half points mark the second-fewest by a WSU opponent this season...WSU's 23 first-half points are its fewest this season (previous low was 24 scored in the first half at USC, Jan. 21).
 The 98 combined points mark the fewest total points in a WSU game this season...the previous low was 117 at Arizona State (71-46)...last season USC and WSU combined for the fewest total points in the all-time series with 90 as USC came away with 46-44 victory in Pullman Jan. 24.
 The 42 combined first half points by both teams are the fewest combined first half points in a Cougar game this season.
 USC's 19 first half are tied for 21st for fewest points by a Cougar opponent in a half since joining the Pacific-8 Conference in 1968-69.

MOORE OUT OF REGGIE:
 The Pac-10's lone starting freshman point guard, Reggie Moore has gotten off to a hot start for the Cougars in his rookie campaign, ranking second on the team with 13.4 points per game.
 Not only is he second in scoring, but he leads the team in assists with 4.1 dishes per game.
 At Kansas State, Dec. 5, Moore set a WSU freshman record with 12 free throws made.
 Against Air Force Dec. 12 in Spokane, Moore had the first double-double of his young career...he had a career high 10 assists, the second-most single game assists by a Cougar freshman.
 Moore bettered that in his next game with 12 assists, marking the second-most single game assists by a Cougar freshman as he now has the second and third best performances.
 Moore leads all Pac-10 freshmen in assists, assists/turnover ratio and free throw percentage and ranks second among freshmen in scoring.
 He is currently on pace for the WSU freshman record for assists which is 114 set by Bennie Seltzer in 1990.
 If the season ended today, Moore would capture the freshman record for assists average and would finish second in scoring average.

KOPRIVICA AMONG WINNINGEST COUGARS:
 Senior Nikola Koprivica has been a part of WSU men's basketball teams that have combined for 85 wins (2007-present).
 With 85 wins to his name, Koprivica ranks second for most wins by an individual student-athlete in WSU history.
 The number of wins does not include wins during a student-athlete's redshirt year, and the player doesn't have to have played in all of the games during the season.
 Below is a list of the top-five winningest players in WSU history:
1. George Hamilton (1945, 1947-49), 86
2. Nikola Koprivica (2007-10), 85
3. Ed Gayda (1947-50), 82
4. Daven Harmeling (2005, 2007-09), 81
5. Aaron Baynes (2006-09), 80Caleb Forrest (2006-09), 80

COUGARS AMONG WINNINGEST TEAMS IN PAC-10:
 Over the last four seasons (2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10) the Cougars have the second most overall and third most conference wins among Pac-10 schools.
 WSU is 85-45 (.654) overall and 38-31 in conference play over the last three years and this season.
 UCLA has the best four-year record at 104-33 (.759) overall and 52-17 in league play.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES:
 Twenty-seven games into this season, sophomore Klay Thompson has already surpassed his point total from the 33 games of his freshman season.
 Thompson scored 414 as a freshman, averaging 12.5 points a game...he currently has 544 points this season, averaging 20.1
 He's shot five times more free throws this year than the entire last season...he's shot 160 as a sophomore, compared to just 31 as a freshman.
 Senior Nikola Koprivica's stats have gone up this season as well, as his 238 points are 19 points shy of his total from his freshman, sophomore and junior season combined (257).
 With 35 trey's on the season, he surpassed his total number of 3-pointers made from his first three seasons (26).

THOMPSON APPROACHING 1,000:
 Sophomore Klay Thompson currently has 958 points and is just 42 points away from becoming the 31st Cougar to reach 1,000 career points.
 If Thompson can keep up his 20.1 points per game average or his 16.3 points per game Pac-10 average, he will reach 1,000 points March 6 at Oregon...that would be his 63rd career game.
 Either way, Thompson would become the third-fastest Coug to 1,000 points behind Steve Puidokas (52 games) and Jim McKean (57 games)...Larry Beck is currently third as he did it in 66 games.

CASTO'S BLOCK PARTY
 With 59 blocked shots as a sophomore and 39 during his rookie campaign, DeAngelo Casto has 98 career blocks.
 His 98 blocks rank sixth in the WSU career record books.
 His 58 blocked shots this season rank him fourth in the Cougar single-season record books...the most blocks since Stuart House swatted 69 shots in 1979-80.

BACK-TO-BACK STELLAR STARTS FOR WSU COACHES:
 First-year Cougar head coach Ken Bone got his team off to a 6-0 start, making him the second-straight WSU coach to start 6-0 in his rookie campaign.
 Bone's 6-0 mark ranks as the fifth-best start by a Pacific-10 Conference coach in his debut in the post-World War II era.
 It ties as the 18th-best start by a head coach at a current Pac-10 institution.
 Four seasons ago, Tony Bennett got off to a 7-0 start for the Cougars, which ties for the 13th-best start by a Pac-10 coach.

THOMPSON EARNS BACK-TO-BACK PLAYER OF THE WEEK HONORS:
 Klay Thompson was named the Pacific-10 Conference Player of the week for the weeks of Nov. 16-22 and Nov. 23-29.
 He is just the third Cougar to earn a Pac-10 Player of the Week award twice in the same season as Daven Harmeling did so in 2006-07 and Joe Wallace accomplished the feat in 1985-87.
 He's just the second Cougar to earn the honor over the last three seasons.
 He became the 17th men's basketball player student-athlete to earn back-to-back Player of the Week honors, as Patrick Christopher of California and James Harden, formerly of Arizona State, accomplished it last season.
 Thompson joins elite company, as he became the 13th sophomore to earn multiple Player of the Week awards.
 James Harden, Ryan Anderson, Darren Collison, Daven Harmeling, Gilbert Arenas, Baron Davis, Jason Kidd, Harold Miner, Chris Mills, Adam Keefe, Gary Payton and Reggie Miller also accomplished that feat in their sophomore campaigns.

THE PAC-10 40 POINT CLUB:
 With his 43 points against San Diego (Nov. 28), Klay Thompson became just the third Pac-10 player to score 40 points in the last five seasons...James Harden of ASU scored 40 in 2008-09 and Leon Powe of California scored 41 in 2005-06.
 It's the most points scored by a Pac-10 player since Jason Kapono of UCLA scored 44 against WSU, Jan. 4, 2003.

COUGARS DOMINATE SHOOTOUT:
 The Cougars not only won the Great Alaska Shootout title, but they also notched their names in the record books along the way.
 WSU's .575 field goal percentage in its three games is the third-best in Shootout history and just .011 behind the record.
 The Cougs' .511 3-point field goal percentage is the fifth-best 3-point shooting performance all time.
 They set the championship game record for largest margin of victory with a 37-point defeat (93-56) of San Diego...the old record was 29 (76-47) points as San Diego State defeated Hampton last season.
 WSU tied the tournament championship game record for most second half points with 54, held by Illinois vs. New Mexico State in 1992 and Iowa vs. Northeastern in 1986.
 WSU led the tournament in scoring offense (86.0 ppg), scoring defense (64.3 papg), field goal percentage (.575), field goal percentage defense (.391), 3-point field goal percentage (.511), blocked shots (4.7 bpg) and assists (19.0 apg).
 To put it in perspective, there have been 381 Shootout games over 32 years.